Alucius Hephasta wrote:Yes, we have created and adjust some ships, but always with the Games Workshop approval.We can't decided to add a ship by ourselves, and we really want to fit as close as possible to the TT.

About the Dark Eldar, I'm agree with you, 1 line ship and 1 escort ship in the TT won't offer a great ship's choice for Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.But we want to stay focus on fixing the bug/errors/crash and working on the future DLC (Space Marines and Tau) before speculating about the implementation of others factions of the 40k universe.

Can totally appreciate the need (potentially legal need) for Games Workshops approval on creating 'new content'.However it can't be stressed enough, that fleet content and composition diversity is crucial.

'Fitting' as close as possible to the TT is all well and good, until you realise that the TT game DIED and FAILED.Half the reason for this was a lack of new content to keep the game (and in particular, certain races 'alive' and in use).Without new content things become stagnant and boring. Immediately that's not a huge issue for this game, as you can just pump out new races for the time being, however you need to make sure you don't forget the existing races. (Eldar comes to mind; with their limited fleet options).

Hell, when it comes to 'creating' new ships, you could even run a community 'competition', and take the best ideas to Games Workshop to have them use (either directly, or as a basis for their own creation). Some of the best lore even written has come from avid fans, I'm sure you'll have more than enough willing participants to come up with some awesome lore-abiding content.

actually the reason BFG died was because GW shut down their specialist games division. looks like they've opened it back up though so good news on that front.

Look - Miniatures were basically expensive for the majority of players and included the work of assembling and painting them. This was a cost and preparation requirement that was more than most (overall) players of board games were willing to invest. When I bought and fixed up my first game purchase models it took a while before I was ready to play even a starter game. The others in my gaming group (roughly 6 players regular and 4+ occasional) were somewhat reluctant (again cost vs fun) and we used my two faction ships from the original box set. Then a few others bought an original box set and we had a few more ships but there was complete lack of interest in buying the numerous miniatures for the other racial fleets. They wanted them but it was simply too expensive and time consuming to get them.

Shortly afterward we started buying and playing the ground based miniatures for Warhammer 40k but this too ran into expense and time. Finally the group returned completely to MMO roleplaying games.

I might point out that 'casual players' are needed to buy and play any game that wants an income above a one-shot deal. A 'punishing game' with no 'obsession' about equality (and balance) has a grimmer long range outlook. Bugsmashing, new content, support, all depend on a revenue stream. And by 'casual' I mean players with the time to play the game and have fun, the object of games. Hard to learn and difficult to play may succeed. We will simply have to wait and see.

Jack the Lad wrote:I'm an early adopter - and I love the game - but having bought it from a third party site I'm not an Early Adopter and so don't qualify for the free DLC offer.

Is there anything I can do about this other than buying the game a second time? If some kind of upgrade option is available I'd be glad and grateful!

buy the DLC when it comes out. assuming the space marine and tau DLC is about 5 bucks per DLC, assuming you paid what GMG charges. you're proably gonna break even. so I'd not sweat it.

I won't be buying any of that stuff until I see if they make the Eldar playable with the pulsar nerf. I can agree that pulsars need looking at, but that really is the only card Eldar have to play. This balance pass will be the litmus test. If it is botched, well....so long and thanks for all the fish!

#2 - What are your opinions on the state of the current multiplayer balance?

Imperium is at not far from the gold spot.Chaos needs some minor tweaks.Orks could have access to a different batch of upgrades and skills in order to give the faction more flavor. But they are not in a bad spot regarding pure balancing.Eldars are still the faction that requires the most work. What I can tell you for now, is that we’re going to remove the range upgrades for pulsars, and replace them with new upgrades for Starcannons. Our goal regarding Eldar weaponry is to create a true choice between getting a fleet with Starcannons or a fleet with Pulsars. Eldar may be a bit too squishy at the moment, but we’re working to see the extent to which this is true. We also understand that the assassination and Data recovery missions are not quite satisfying with or against Eldars, so we’re looking into amending that.

Q#7 – Pulsars: what are your thoughts on their current form, and what changes do you want to try to balance them?

I know Pulsars are controversial, but they fulfill a role that fits perfectly with the Eldar hit-and-run playstyle. They are the perfect counterparts of Starcannons - high burst, high cooldown vs low damage, high rate of fire. As mentioned earlier, before nerfing Pulsars to the ground, we’re going to remove the range upgrade and replace it with a Starcannon upgrade. I think the major issue with Pulsars at the moment comes from range upgrades that make them really disgusting, as Eldars are no longer forced to commit their ships at mid-range in order to perform the burst. We’re also thinking about increasing the duration between each pulsar shot.

The most over powered part of eldar gameplay is the favor that gives eldar 50% bonus damage when hidden and the running silent upgrade. I would think that simply changing the eldar's fragile ability to Flash ability which would extend the cooldown on running silently by 100% and reduce running silently duration by 100% would be a far better balance. Also remove the upgrade that extends running silently to not include running silently or reduce it to 50% from 100%. This would allow other players a better chance to kite eldar players. This would make the favor where if we don't move we go invisible more useful! Also change cruiser clash to a team death match defender is ridiculous. Please not I used 100% as a base line I have no idea if that is feasible or not maybe x% would be more appropriate but you get the idea.

someone probably beat me too the punch but read the last page... that is a home-brew rule set not an entire fleet, GW only ever made 2 ships, which admittedly had a few customization options.

I don't mind them being agile orks, the problem is they only have cruisers and escorts, which isn't going to be fun to play as. Though Cruisers certainly can take on battle cruisers and will probably form the base of your fleet anyways, it still wouldn't be as fun as imperial guard who get to bring out their big guns every once in a while, while you're stuck with the same fleet that functions the exact same, save the few specialized ships.

Apologies if this or a variant thereof has already been asked, but are the devs considering (or would they consider) enabling lower point options for Custom gamemode? I play a lot of the Rogue Trader RPG (which I see the devs either like or have worked on due to references to the Calixis Sector) and the game seems like a neat way of running some of the battles, but there's no option for a match set at, say 150 or 200 points that would enable "single LC plus escort versus an equivalent enemy fleet" scenarios. At 250pt minimum, I can take the LC and a single Sword/Firestorm but the opponent could show with a cruiser and two light escorts - not the sort of fight I want to simulate.

On that notion, any plans for a custom mission builder that could be run via the Custom gamemode? Allow preset enemies, hazards, etc?